Running errands in Cuenca

Today Slocomb and I decided to run some errands in town. Nellie dropped us off near the center of town before running her own errands, so Slocomb and I walked up to the downtown area to try to find a cell phone. We didn't realize that today was one of the first days that people came back from holiday, so the streets were very busy.
We found the phone store and even found a clerk who spoke English (whoo!!). Unfortunately, we also found that the least expensive phones were more than $50 (boo!). At this point, I remembered Natalie telling me that she was able to unlock and use her American phone while she was in Italy, so I suggested to Slocomb that we try that. The thing is, if we can buy a pre-paid phone card, we can get about 25 mins or 60 texts for $3. But that doesn't do us any good if we don't have a phone. Boo.
So we walked back from the center of town, and I saw this very intriguing old building on the corner of Mariscal Lamar and Convención del 45. I'm not sure what it is, but the different paint layers and the fruit tree outside seem very Cuencan to me.

After coming home from errands we had a lovely lunch of soup with potato and fresh avocado from the Coloma's garden, hamburgers with guacamole and peanut sauce, and rice. Then, while Slocomb was taking his siesta, I emailed the phone company asking if there was some international unlock code. Hopefully they get back to me soon because I'd really like to get this phone thing worked out.

There are also a couple more pictures I'd like to share. I took them from the third floor balcony of the Coloma's house, and you can see the storm clouds moving in over Cuenca.
There is this one mountain south of the city that always seems to be eaten by clouds, so hopefully you can see it in the picture.
Anyway, that's it for now. Tomorrow we're going to have lunch with the rest of the international staff from the school and start talking about our job this year!